Castlevania: Aria of the Ascending Soul
Written By: Lady Lunar Phoenix
Edited during a massive series of sneezing fits so oh boy its a thing.
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Never had there been stories of a 'servants quarters' on the castle grounds.
It never made sense, as all of Dracula's servants were the unholy and undead. What was sleep? Simon's journals spoke of the unique trips through the castle during the day. The strange calm that radiated out of the walls, while the feelings of being watched wasn't so much out of hate or disdain as much as dismissive disinterest.
But again, no servants quarters.
In fact the location didn't make much sense either, as though the 'castle' was just as confused. So much so that Alex couldn't shake the impression of some small child indecisively trying to put a sticker on their shirt. So much shirt and space and this one small sticker.
The stones of the servants quarters were of general red brick, the type used in normal ranch houses, granted painted to match the castle. The thick block of stones cut from the mighty mountains, with something made in a kiln right against it...
Alex couldn't really figure out if the servants quarters looked that way because 'Soma' wanted them to know where the cults were. Or if the 'castle' just wanted to point out how absolutely strange this situation was for it. 'Creature of Darkness utterly confused about what the hell was going on' didn't roll off the tongue as easily as 'This castle is a Creature of Chaos, it can assume many forms'.
"You can not take this castle from us! It is to be 'our' home! Our safe space!"
Alex blinked as he looked about the landscape, the balconies were high above but they were empty. "This is the castle of Dracula! Unless you're willing to serve under him, which is a bit much given you 'crucified his son to get his attention', I can say with certain he does not want your services!" Alex called back in irritation. Thinking of Alexis having to come across their lord is such a horrid state easily refocused his attention. Refocused him to his surroundings and tucked his worry over Sam into the back of his mind.
Instead he stood there with the Alucarde Spear resting on his shoulder. His eyes swept the courtyard, no one around the bushes, and the occasional hovering candle. Lit no matter day or night.
"He wouldn't manifest at the Black Mass, of course we had to intensify our search!"
She wasn't distant, he could hear her well enough that she wasn't screaming to be heard.
"'Intensify our search'", he scoffed though he could see her point. 'If they were unwilling to accept a young man like Soma was Dracula... I guess all of them just assumed that only someone born at the same time as Dracula's death could be him. But Soma goes incredibly violent over Lord Alucards' personal safety and he didn't even fully 'know' at the time.'
Alex sent a soft chill against the stones trying to find something that stood out amid all the very regular...
Hello...
Alex felt the cold of his magic race along the stones of the ground easily, flowing over the natures' mountain stones, settling in. Despite stone not being 'alive' in most senses, it always felt to respond best to ice magic, absorbing the cold like an old friend. Bringing to mind the snow covered peaks that rested in the distance of the castle itself...
Then as a river flowed around a rock in its path... It was gone. One moment he felt something disrupt his ice magic, experience teaching him that it meant someone was standing out there. But it just disappeared one minute warmth next minute his cold flowed unabaited.. 'Well I mean she could be able to fly... and might have felt her toes getting chilly...' he reasoned as he turned towards her general direction.
Fortners' cult was made up of summoners, only he didn't know what Francine 'summoned'. She could very well summon flying demons that could lift her up only wing flaps made noise. If she was summoning and growing a force of aerial demons for him to face...
'Give her as many false senses of security as I can...' he decided. She had sensed her feet getting cold, so likely just sending out a burst of cold air might be pointless. 'I need to know as much as I can. I don't have back up.' Evening was coming, as such nature would make the temperature drop not seriously but perhaps enough... And being laid up like Sam wasn't something he wanted, Alexis would kill him for starters. Max would help because that was the type of 'friend' she was...
"This woman..."
A strange woman's voice was carried along the breeze. Her voice brought to Alex's mind Lord Alucards' voice. She carried this tone of nobility, an offended noble yet it lacked the aloof nature that Lord Alucard spoke with.
"'crucified' my son?"
All thoughts came to a crashing halt as the sentence was finished. For all his mastery over ice magic, that one sentence sent skeletal icy fingers up his spine.
'This woman crucified my son.' Only Lord Alucards' mother, and Dracula's wife would make such a claim. The one woman who could send Lord Alucard into a rage was 'here'? Her voice was carried on the wind, there were no other kidnap victims in the castle. Further more there was no way anyone from either cult was going to be in the castle and 'not' know what they did to Lord Alucard.
"Who?" Francines' voice didn't sound confused, just uncertain. As though she knew who this likely 'was', but it couldn't be.
Something Alex couldn't fault her for. The implication was immense, if the wife of Dracula, as a 'ghost' was in the castle. Why didn't her husband or son react to her presence? She was here, for eternity why did that not affect how Dracula reacted to her death?
"You... 'crucified' my poor son?!"
The Lady's voice began to twist into this anguished tone and knowing just why Lord Alucard sided against his father and for humanity...
"He's ok... My lady he's healed, I'm sure you must have seen him." Alex pointed out even as he continued to try and locate just 'where' Francine was. He kept his voice steady, the way he spoke to many distraught students during times of crisis. Be it their grades, their lives outside of school, or the fear of being discovered as a Dark Child by a hunter. Steady, calm, reassure them that he was someone that he could talk to.
All around him he felt as his ice magic 'shiver', he couldn't even name how it felt, and for a moment he couldn't understand why. Why his brain would opt for 'shiver' and then he heard it, the low moaning sobs. The Lady was crying, thus the 'shiver' if she was affecting the air to be heard, it was striking against his ice the way a guitars' string would when struck.
"Monsters. Just monsters..."
The air began to move, it swirled against him tugging urgently against his clothes as the Lady of the Castles' voice heart brokenly moaned into his ear. "She hovers in the air... Surrounded by a shield forged from their life force..." Every break of her voice was filled with a sob...
The professor in Alex could only hear the sobs of those mothers who had tragically lost their child. His mind begged him to abandon this fight and console this woman, be there for her. As she clearly had not had contact with her husband or her son in ages. But the Hunter in him demanded that Francine be stopped.
"Please Lord Alucard is fine, he is a powerful prince... Believe in him," Alex murmured amid the sobs that tore at his heart.
"I know... I know, he is so like his father... Head strong and determined... my baby..."
It was that 'my baby' that broke Alex's mind and brought the hunter to the forefront. Ignorance had resulted in the death of Lord Alucards' mother. That she said that the Lord was like his father, that ignorance and fear kept the two men apart.
"I've dealt with the Dark Children as both an educator and a hunter. I wonder if you have any idea what you have done to these people with your stunt? You were born with a power, yes fine, but to drag down races of people just because you want to live here? Was living with humans 'that' horrible?" Alex demanded. "You're not a were! You don't change during phases of the moon, you're not tied to a tree and will die if that tree is ever cut down! Your rivers are not being defiled daily! You had no right to force the world to know about the Dark Children when humanity 'as a whole' still refuses to get its head out of its own arse about people of different backgrounds!" his voice was an angry challenge against Francine.
"That's the whole problem isn't it? You want to elevate everyone all at once, but the reality is that there are always going to be people who profit from holding others down. But we're not going to be one of those. We don't have a 'Professor X' to shelter us, we'll find our own home and if we upset Dracula. At least he knows the plight of the world, those who will come after us are going to find him more receptive I believe." She retorted when a wave of ice cold wind slammed into her shield.
It didn't go down, much to Alexs' personal annoyance, instead it crystallized itself around what appeared to be a pillar of sorts.
"So maybe I should let you know. Dracula didn't give a damn about Fortners' 'help' when he finally awakened after your leaders' idiotic plan succeeded. If you knew his history you know he's normally very kind, even gracious to those who side with him. 'Soma', killed her out of hand, he's the true reincarnation, but he lacks in Dracula's own brand of compassion." Alex retorted though she did have a point. What often took him by surprise was how many people were aware of Woman's Sufferage and the Civil Rights movement. Yet were unaware that back in the 1800s they were the self 'same' movement. People knew the splinted groups but not that they were born from the same seed.
It was also sadly true that for either 'to' succeed they had to be split apart.
'People need to handle change like a baby with a tiny spoon,' Alex ruminated to himself.
Below his feet the ground began to stir, the ice he had thinly layered on the ground trembled with a wary inducing force. It was all around him, with every step the ground radiated that feeling, a pebble dropped into a still lake.
A pebble... Stone...
'Oh boy...' he thought as he glanced down.
There the soft feathering of ice that traced between the stone blocks fluttered softly here and there but not everywhere.. 'She's a summoner who has connections to earth elementals?' he found himself pondering.
Cat like he lunged forward as the ground below him exploded with the fury of the earth! Stones that once served as foundation to walk on pulled into the form of a fist. The being began to rise up with the efficiency of stone masonry on crack. The upper body from the chest up was a massive gray stone humanoid, but it began ripping into the stone below the floor of the castle. So the lower part of the body became increasingly raw, the rough hew rock mixed with pebbles and sand.
Alex never got the chance to really 'watch' it unfold, for every stone was pulled away. Leaving him leaping from stone to stone as though they were ice floes. It gave the impression the ground was retreating from him as it pulled inward towards the elemental.
Once he reached the 'ground' it was sandy and soft when he stood, the whole area was reduced to enough of a hole he could only just look above the rim. Beyond that the elemental wasn't all that impressive, slow moving, powerful swings... For a fight it was disappointing coming from the new leader of a cult of summoners...
When it died, the stones tumbled into a pile leaving a mess sure, but there was one small area where the stones hadn't been pulled. A place where his own ice magics had brushed against time and again. So he began applying more direct force, both physical and magical against it...
"You're killing the summoner..."
The Lady hadn't left apparently. Her voice was sad, almost lifeless and he could only assume she was still coming to terms with the horrible thing her son had gone through. She entrusted to him the guardianship of the human race from his fathers' rage...
And this was how Humanity paid her back.
'Its nice that she's telling me I'm about done, but why?' it was this strange sort of question that hung in the back of his mind. Why announce the obvious?
The answer came later, when the demons she began summoning were sent back to hell only after he had struck her shield enough times...
Whatever gave it the impression of invisibility, he would figure out later... for now...
A pile of bodies were in a discarded heap on the ground below her.
He could see her briefly, yet once he saw what she was standing 'on' he stopped looking 'at' her as much as the bodies. Four bodies laid on the ground below her inside this strange shielding pillar of hers. Four unique types of summons she had displayed so far...
It was then that the Lady's odd statement came back to him and it clicked.
She wasn't summoning the elementals or the demons, she was summoning those with the 'power' to summon them and using them!
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"I... I can't believe she's there..." Alexis' voice was soft and filled with wonder punctuated by the beeping of the heart monitor strapped to Sam's chest. She sat by Sam's side, a rolling table had been put over the bed with a plate of the most tasteless 'stuff' she had encountered. A large plastic water jug rested filled with ice that normally would have melted before Sam had regained his senses. But then there was Alexis.
Day had become night, unto day once again when Alex finally made the trek to the hospital to check on his friends. His steps had been weary, his clothes been both dusty and damaged when he had reached the front of the hospital. The military was stationed around it, though they weren't denying anyone entry or exit from the building. Instead they greeted him with a more lose salute than one they used for fellow or upper ranked military. Given his exhaustion one left his post at the door and accompanied the hunter. Other soldiers 'were' also traveling through out the village, keeping an eye out for any potential cultists looking for new targets or such. The room Sam received greeted Alex was painted in soft sunlit colors, stiff furniture. Or as Max had put it.
"Yeah they've dealt with vampires. I think you could break this chair and turn its parts into a make shift stake." Which she then went about to emphasize her point by fairly trying to bounce on the 'cushion' and failing.
"I kinda feel bad for her. You're right about the cross thing. Isn't that what they did to her? Strung her up? Man does she even still care about us given how we failed her kid?" Max asked as she reclined in the painfully awkward chair she was in.
"Don't. Please don't talk like that..." Alex groaned as his sister got up and began refilling his paper cup with water.
"Go on Lex, killing a summons shouldn't kill the summoner, at least not enough to make a pile," Sam's voice was exhausted despite being mostly quiet. But at least he was alive and awake. The doctors had been rather strict about the group letting Sam rest, so having Alex recount his battle first was just common sense.
"You're right," Alexis nodded thoughtfully.
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"Why in the hell are you sharing a pillar shield with corpses?" He demanded as another hole cut into space. He didn't want to admit to sounding a touch winded, but the ground had never recovered from the earth elemental and fighting on sand was 'not' helpful against the swiftness of a lightning elemental.
"They aren't when they get here..." Francine retorted and Alex was comforted by the fact that she sounded both pissed and tired.